We tried to go to the Bingham Canyon Mine today but we were not able to get in. Apparently environmentalists are not as good at trespassing as geologists are. It is a shame that we could not see the mine ourselves because it sounds remarkable. It is 2.75 miles in diameter, 0.75 miles deep and has excavated 18.7 million tons of copper. At the current rate of $4.24 per pound that converts to roughly 159 billion dollars, but then again the mine has been in operation since 1873. The ore deposit at the site is caused by a quartz monazite porphyry intruding into a sedimentary rock. Quartz monazite is just a term for an igneous intrusion containing quartz and an equal amount of plagioclase and feldspar and porphyry means that the crystals are large and held together by a very fine grained matrix. Hairline fractures in the porphyritic rock allow hydrothermal fluids with high concentration of metals to intrude the rock this forms copper porphyry. The ore that is is being mined contains between 0.4 to 1% copper.
Citations:
"Amzing Facts." Kennecott Utah Copper. Web. 2011.
http://www.kennecott.com/visitors-center/amazing-facts/
Picture Citations:
"Bingham Canyon Mine." Moldy Chum. 2007.
http://moldychum.typepad.com/moldy_chum/images/2007/10/31/bingham_canyon_copper_mine_1.jpg
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